Green Bay Packers defeat Detroit Lions, 24-20

Nov. 18, 2012

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Green Bay Press-Gazette

Green Bay Packers safety M.D. Jennings runs towards the end zone after making an interception in the third quarter during Sunday's game against the Detroit Lions at Ford Field in Detroit. Evan Siegle/Press-Gazette

DETROIT — The Green Bay Packers faced no small challenge Sunday: A Detroit Lions team with some scary talent playing at home and with the highest of motivation because its season was on the line.

In many ways, the Packers didn’t answer with one of their better games of the 2012 season. Quarterback Aaron Rodgers was fine (106.4 passer rating) but not special. Mason Crosby missed two key field goals. And safety Morgan Burnett had a sure interception go right through his hands to Calvin Johnson for a Lions touchdown.

Yet with the game on the line late, the Packers put up the winning points and then stopped the Lions’ dangerous offense from answering. Thus, with a 24-20 win, the Packers landed two big shots in one swing by picking up their fifth straight win and in effect ending an NFC North Division rival’s playoff hopes.

“Maybe three shots,” defensive lineman Ryan Pickett said. “I don’t know what they’re going to do for the rest of the season, but just for our morale to come out and play really good on defense and grind out a win like this on the road against a division opponent — they played their hardest, and for us to find a way at the end to win, that’s great for our confidence.”

At 7-3, the Packers are only a half-game behind 7-2 Chicago for first place in the NFC North, with the Bears playing at San Francisco Monday night. The Packers also have the best record of all the second-place teams in the NFC, so at worst they’re in the lead for the first of the two wild-card spots in the NFC with six games to play.

The Lions no doubt understood what was at stake Sunday, and played like it with their effort and self-restraint. They were coming off a bad loss at Minnesota and with five losses going into Sunday faced a tough remaining schedule that included two games against the Packers, and one each against Chicago, Houston (9-1) and Atlanta (9-1), so they had to win this game to have a decent shot at a playoff spot.

At 4-6, the Lions are mathematically in the race but those odds are long at best, especially because they’re 0-4 in the division. Center Dominic Raiola summed up their all-but-dead hopes when he fired his helmet from the middle of the field to the sideline after the Lions’ failed fourth down with 1:19 to play that in essence ended the game.

“They didn’t have any cheap penalties. They normally have a lot of flags,” Pickett said. “I think we had more flags than they did by far. They played disciplined. You could tell they wanted this game bad.”

Probably nothing better illustrated the difference between these teams on this day than when the game was on the line. With 4:25 to play, the Packers had the ball at their 18 and trailed 20-14. In six plays, including a huge 40-yard catch-and-run by tight end Jermichael Finley and a 22-yard corner route to Randall Cobb for a touchdown, the Packers went up 21-20.

But when the Lions got the ball back at their 25, they still had plenty of time left (1:55) and only needed a field goal to win. They went four-and-out with four incompletions and a false-start penalty by right tackle Gosder Cherilus to boot.

“It’s a mature team; it’s a team with some more veterans on it,” Rodgers said of the Packers. “We’ve won a lot of games here together. In the past these are games that you probably come up on the other side, but because of the success that we’ve had, and understand what it takes to win, these games are now in the win column for us.”

The difference as much as anything was Rodgers was a more accurate and smarter thrower than his counterpart, Matthew Stafford, on a day when neither quarterback was anywhere near his best.

Rodgers (19-for-27 passing) had one bad throw on the day, in the second quarter when he blew good field position in Lions territory with a short and low throw on a seam route to Cobb that hit rookie Jacob Lacey in the numbers for the easy interception. Other than that, Rodgers, though not at his playmaking best, didn’t miss on any obvious wide-open throws for an offense that put up 314 yards and only two touchdowns (the Packers’ defense scored the other touchdown).

Even on the game-winning touchdown to Cobb, Rodgers didn’t throw a great pass while under pressure, but it wasn’t particularly dangerous either. Cobb was covered one-on-one and in a much better position to adjust to the underthrown touch pass than Lacey, who in man-to-man coverage had to play Cobb rather than the ball until the last second. Chances were either Cobb or no one would come up with that pass, and the Packers’ emerging playmaker at receiver made the play.

“Everybody knew it was a struggle,” Rodgers said. “We didn’t play our best on offense. But when our best was needed, we were able to come through.”

Stafford, on the other hand, was scattershot (54.0 rating, two interceptions, 43.6 completion percentage) and made several tough or dangerous throws sidearm and off his back foot.

He twice missed his big-play machine, Johnson, on deep throws that probably would have yielded long touchdowns after the 6-foot-5 receiver had run past the Packers’ secondary. One came late in the first half with the Lions ahead 10-7, the other in the third quarter with the same lead. And on the biggest play of the game, Stafford later in the third quarter threw high and behind tight end Tony Scheffler, who failed to make the tough catch and had the ball carom off his hands to safety M.D. Jennings. Jennings’ 72-yard return for a touchdown put the Packers ahead 14-10 and picked up a team whose offense was struggling.

Then with the chance to go ahead in the final 2 minutes, Stafford couldn’t complete a pass against a Packers defense that was missing its most important player, outside linebacker Clay Matthews (hamstring injury). It didn’t go without notice that two rookies in a much-improved secondary made key plays: Second-round pick Casey Hayward broke up a third-and-15 pass to Titus Young, and fourth-round pick Jerron McMillian knocked down the final deep, desperation pass to Scheffler on fourth-and-15.

“We don’t even have our best players on the field,” Pickett said. “That’s kind of scary. It’s good because it’s giving us confidence in the younger players coming up and playing. The difference between this year and last year, the defense can pick the offense up. Last year that was not the case, it was always the offense had to carry us. This year our defense is playing well enough where the offense can not have the best day and we still win.”